


little tiger tooth

by capra



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Adam - Freeform, Also featuring in cameo appearances:, Bisexual Disaster Nathan Chen, Gizmo the bunny, Karen - Freeform, Language Barrier, M/M, Maia & Alex, Mariah - Freeform, Shoma Uno (blink and you'll miss it), You are welcome, gratuitous descriptions of Boyang, i hope you appreciate this, i researched tiktok videos for this, romain, you funky little memelords, yuzu - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 08:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17804543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capra/pseuds/capra
Summary: “I don’t know him,” Nate whined. He was aware he was whining, but he felt he was entitled. Love was stupid. Well, maybe it was. He wouldn’t know yet. This was a crush, and crushing was definitely stupid. “I don’t know him, I mean not really, and there’s the language barrier, and--”“And you still like him, right? So isn’t that kind of proving that you do know him? At least, you know enough of him that you can like that part. So tell him already and start getting to know the rest.”Nathan debates confessing to his crush. In the end, it's more of a collaborative decision.





	little tiger tooth

**Author's Note:**

> for once, i have written a fic that is not based on a song. let's see whether or not that was a horrible idea.
> 
> This story is based on a narrow range of cherrypicked personality qualities culled from my personal and very biased interpretation of the publically available personas of real human beings who are, I am quite certain, not similar at all to how they're depicted here.
> 
> In short, it's complete fiction.
> 
> *
> 
> 虎牙 hu ya - "tiger tooth"  
> 小虎牙 xiao hu ya - "little tiger tooth" - colloquial usage  
> The misaligned tooth, often a canine, that sticks cutely out from the rest of one's teeth.

“I’m _certain_ ,” Hanyu had told him, and rolled his eyes. Then, with the help of his phone’s notepad function and Google translate:

_Trust me. I would not lie to you about this. Also, if you ask too many more people ‘just to be sure,’ someone will get impatient and tell him for you._

Nathan remembers feeling the blood drain from his face.

“Okay, okay. I’ll--I’ll tell him,” he had promised, and well then he _had_ to do it, right? He’d just promised Hanyu. Who would probably put out a very embarrassing hit on him if he did not. And by ‘put out a hit’ Nathan of course meant ‘arrange for Nathan have a very embarrassing, very required central role at the next gala,’ because it’s Hanyu, and he’s sweet and kind and also merciless.

Nathan supposed that meant he’d really made it, he was officially Hanyu’s friend, of some sort, if it meant he was seriously worried about the public humiliation he’d be put through if he broke his promise to freaking confess to his crush already.

Crush. Right.

Thinking about Hanyu was an escape tactic, and one that wasn’t working well. Nathan turned his attention back to the present moment, the challenge at hand. Low lights, loud music, a banquet hall full of round tables and abandoned suit jackets draped over the backs of chairs, none of which were pushed back in to their tables. With the amount of champagne being consumed by a certain cohort of the banquet attendance, this kind of chair-leg chaos was sure to become a tripping hazard. There should at least be a _little_ bit of a path.

Nathan began arranging chairs, scooting them in against the tables they’d come from, while he thought things through. Hanyu was certain - very certain. And everyone generally seemed to trust his judgement, so that meant he had good judgement, right? Nathan frowned, easily recalling a _lot_ of counter-examples. Okay, maybe not.

Putting Hanyu’s opinion aside, what other guidance had he received? Nathan decided to mentally tabulate his friends’ input.  Pros and cons. Nice and straightforward.

_“Go for it!” Alex was doing that grin, the one that was just past cheery and solidly into unhinged. He only ever did that grin for intentionally goofy videos and the occasional Twitter post. Therefore, Nathan wasn’t sure it was fully genuine._

_“You just want to see me confess so it’s interesting,” he frowned. “You don’t even know who it is.”_

_“No, but I don’t need to,” Alex answered, unruffled. “It’s not about whether you get accepted or not, Nate. You gotta try. Try lots and lots, experience everything. Go to a great restaurant, take them along, make it a friends date. Tell them there. If they reject you, hey, order the whole dessert menu.”_

Hmm. Alex explicitly advised him to confess, so that _should_ go in the Pros column, right? But he didn’t seem to be prioritizing the emotional impact of the inevitable rejection. So shouldn’t Alex’s advice actually be counted as a Con, as the conversation simply highlighted the scope of the risk of rejection?

 _Editorialize later, tabulate now,_ Nathan reminded himself. He moved to the next pair of dinner tables and their scramble of chairs, and the next recommendation he’d received.

Alex: Pro-confessing. Hanyu: Pro-confessing.

Maia had offered a more cautious perspective, though she’d also encouraged him in the end.

 _“If you won’t tell us who it is, Nathan, we can’t really tell you_ **_specific_ ** _advice, but...even still, I think Alex is right. If a bit heartless. Of course it matters if you get rejected. But what if you_ **_don’t?_ ** _”_

Maia: Pro-confessing. Asterisk, her opinion was based on unrealistically positive odds of success. But still, pro. Who else?

Karen knew who it was, of course. He didn’t keep much from Karen.

 _“Nathan I swear to God I will tell him if you don’t.”_  
_  
_ _“You will_ **_not_ ** _,” Nathan had snapped back, chucking a foam roller past her head. “Don’t even.”_

_“Okay. But come onnnn. It’s been months! What competition was it, wasn’t it--”_

_“Stop,” Nathan said, chucking another roller. Now he was out of rollers, and he wasn’t done with his cooldown. Damnit. He got up to fetch them. “Don’t say it, someone could figure it out if they heard you.”_

_Karen rolled her eyes at him and laughed. “And so what if they did? I’m not saying I get it, he’s not my type, but-- so what, Nathan? It’s okay to have a crush.”_

Karen: Pro. Annoyingly so.

Even more annoying - and even more in the loop about Nathan’s feelings - were his very favorite, except when they were being total annoying jerks at him, matched set of rinkmates.

_“I just think it’s probably stupid in the first place is all.” Nathan poked at the fuzzy tips of Gizmo’s ears, amusing himself with the way the rabbit would lay down the one that was prodded. He set up a rhythm: right, left, right, left, right, right, leftleft. Gizmo, who had thought sitting on Uncle Nathan’s chest would involve getting petted, not prodded at, wrinkled his nose and sneezed on Nathan’s face._

_“Yeah, you’ve said that like six times, Nate,” Mariah sighed, exasperated, and stretched her leg out along the length of the couch they were both sprawled on until she could kick Nathan on the ass. Well, the thigh. Poured sideways into the armchair opposite the couch, Romain didn’t even look up from his phone and snorted._

_“But what about it is so stupid?”_

_“I don’t know him,” Nate whined. He was aware he was whining, but he felt he was entitled. Love was stupid. Well, maybe it was. He wouldn’t know yet. This was a crush, and crushing was_ ** _definitely_** _stupid. “I don’t know him, I mean not really, and there’s the language barrier, and--”_

 _“And you still like him, right? So isn’t that kind of proving that you_ **_do_ ** _know him? At least, you know enough of him that you can like that part. So tell him already and start getting to know the rest.”_

_Nathan looked over Gizmo’s ears to glare at Mariah, who was being annoyingly correct, and Romain, who was being annoyingly content to agree with everything his girlfriend was saying._

_But he didn’t argue._

Mariah and Romain: Pro-confessing. Gizmo: Undeclared.

Nathan added an “Other” column to his mental tabulation, and placed Gizmo’s vote there. He recognized the absurdity of creating a vote column just for a bunny’s sneeze, but the thing was, it wasn’t the only non-binary answer he’d received.

 _“Okay, and you know him from work?”_

_“Skating, yes.”_

_“Okay.” Janice sighed, and raked her hair back from her brow. “You know him from skating.”  
_

_"_ _Yeah,” Nathan had said, and gulped. Yeah, he’d used a pronoun already, but Janice had skimmed over that the first time around, so now…  
_

_“And you’re sure you really like him?”  
_

_“Oh my god, nevermind.”  
_

_“No, seriously. You like this guy?”  
_

_“Yeah.”  
_

_“You know him very well?”  
_

_Nathan shifted uncomfortably. “Not yet. I mean, I know his skating. So I do know him. But like, I don’t?”  
_

_“Augh.” Janice rested her chin on her hand, mouth pressed in the trademark unimpressed Chen slant. Just looking at his sister’s expression made Nathan feel like he was being judged by her **and** his mother at the same time. It was unnerving.  “I don’t understand, okay? I just-- either you get him, or you don’t. I don’t get this ‘yes but no’ stuff. Why aren’t you talking to Alice about this? She gets art better than I do.”  
_

_“You were easier to find,” Nathan lies, because ‘She makes me more nervous than you do,’ was hurtful, and ‘She’s even more protective of me than you are,’ would be a challenge. Which he did not want to extend, because Janice was more than equipped to meet it.  
_

_“Mmm-hmm. Whatever. Okay, look, Nate, I don’t know. If you don’t know this kid, how do you know he won’t hurt you?”  
_

_“That_ **_is_ ** _kind of what I came to you to ask,” Nathan grumbled, tugging on his hair in frustration, looking at his shoes. Avoidance and comfort all in one. A nice side benefit of collecting shoes and having awkward conversations with your sister.  
_

_“Hey.” Janice frowned, and Nathan looked up, meeting her eye guiltily. “It’s okay that he’s a boy, you know,” she said, leaning forward, elbows on her knees. She held her hands together, fingers fidgeting a little. Nathan saw, and was a little comforted. It reminded him this shit was hard for anyone to talk about.  
_

_“I know. Mostly.”  
_

_“Well, it is. And I’ll punch anyone out who says different.”  
_

_Nathan snorted. “Mom?” Janice’s expression made him laugh: a bark of sharp, unsympathetic amusement.  
_

_“Okay,_ **_almost_ ** _anyone,” Janice amended nervously, “Not that Mom would be a problem anyway.”  
_

_“You don’t know that,” Nathan said, and immediately regretted it.  
_

_“Hey.” Janice was right in front of him now, scooted out of her chair and onto the floor in front of his, ducked all the way down so even his downcast gaze had to look at her, crouched awkwardly to shove her face into his line of sight. Nathan gave up and lifted his head, a helpless little fold of fear pulling his eyebrows up and together in the middle. He knew he looked pathetic.  
_

_“Hey,” Janice said again, prodding at Nathan’s hands - which were, as hers had been moments before, knotted together and fiddling nervously._

_“Mom isn’t gonna have a problem with it, I know that in my bones. She’ll be cool._ **_Unless_ ** _he hurts her baby. In which case he will lose his goddamn balls. Right?” Nathan laughed, dry and shaky and vividly envisioning his mother’s vengeance._ _  
_

_“Hoo boy. Yeah.”_

_Janice smiled. “Yeah. And you know it. So come on, talk to me. Do you know this kid well enough to trust him like that?”_

They’d gone back and forth over it for more than an hour. Nathan wasn’t willing to divulge identifying details about his crush, and Janice didn’t know his friends well enough to guess. So they talked in vagaries and generalisations, theoreticals. Ultimately, Janice withheld giving any recommendation, on the grounds that a poorly-founded hypothesis was just a guess, and what did her advice matter anyway? _You know him better, Nathan, and this is your life. Just know I’ll be here with the celebratory matcha...or a nail bat. I still have the one left over from two Halloweens ago._

Janice: Undecided.

Nathan sighed. Shoved the next two chairs in roughly, toppling several of the champagne flutes abandoned on the table. “Shit.” He righted them, setting them upright on their tiny bases, folding up the tablecloth to mop up the little bit of liquid that had spilled.

Getting frustrated wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

 _“Why are you even asking me, baby boy?” Adam had sighed, rolling his eyes so hard Nathan thought they might roll right out of the FaceTime chat. “I know you’re not going to do anything I say anyway. You’re just going to twiddle around indecisively until he starts dating someone else and then you’ll mope and mourn on the sidelines wondering what you might have had, and that might be good pathos for your next season’s programs, but is that really what you want, here?”_ _  
_ _Nathan opened his mouth to argue, irritated in three different directions, personally offended for at least two reasons._

 _And then Adam_ **_smiled_ ** _, lips curling with that particular expression that only he could ever pull off: Smug affection that somehow wasn’t condescending, even though from literally anyone else it would be. Pride in his little pupil for reaching the correct answer. Fuck, Nathan realized._

_“There you go. There’s my boy. Now you’re mad. So go do something about it. Go get that boi.”_

_“You don’t even know who he is,” Nathan mumbled, trying not to pay attention to how deeply Adam’s particular brand of tough love had him blushing in gratitude. Maybe if he ignored it, it would go away._

_“And that’s why you’d best go_ **_get that boi_ ** _, so I can find out already!”_

_Yeah, the blush wasn’t going anywhere._

Adam: Strongly pro-confessing. Manipulatively, but effectively, so.

Nathan sighed. Swung a leg over one of the abandoned chairs, chin on his hands on the chairback, and sighed again. This tabulation idea was turning out to be a wash. What kind of pro-con table had entries only in the _Pro_ column?

“The kind I should do something about already,” he muttered.

“Nathan?” A light voice speaking from just behind his right shoulder, nearly into his ear. The speaker was close, _very_ close, close enough that he could feel their breath. Nathan jolted forward, startled, but since he was facing the front of the seat, _out of his seat_ didn’t exactly happen. Instead, it ended up _over his seat,_ as the chair tipped forward onto two legs, then fell flat onto the floor. Nathan, scrambling, managed to not get either of his feet smacked by the chair back as it hit the banquet hall carpet, and also managed not to fall over, or fall onto his ass on top of the chair, or any number of other truly embarrassing things.

Then he turned around, and decided that, for _this_ person, he’d already embarrassed himself plenty enough.

_Absolutely ready to drop through the floor now, any time, come on skating gods, I’m begging you here._

“You fuckin’ startled me,” he said instead, trying to regain his cool, or a shred of it, trying to get his heart to slow down.

_Well, at least you have a feasible excuse to be blushing right now. Elevated heart rate from a sudden shock can cause flushing in the cheeks and--_

“How the hell did you get that close?”

Jin Boyang tipped his head to one side, lips pursed in a duckmouth, brows drawn down.

“Oh. Fuck. Right.” Nathan could kick himself and his dumb California smushed speech. But Boyang already had his phone out, and was speaking into its microphone rapidly. Then he read over the text on the screen, adjusted it at one or two points, and hit ‘Play.’  Google’s text-to-voice translation read out his message in English, syllables stilted and unnatural. Nathan wanted to wince, but held it back.

_“I wanted to see how close I could get before you noticed me. I didn’t think I could get that close. You were thinking too hard. It’s a party. Come dance.”_

Nathan gulped. Looked up from Boyang’s phone screen to his face, wide-eyed, imp-smiling, utterly unembarrassed.

 _Language barriers are made to be broken,_ Nathan thought. _Get over yourself, Nate._

He pulled out his phone, pulled up the notepad, and started typing. Several shaky-handed typos later, and after two rereads, he copied the text into his Translate app and processed it through. Rather than have the app read what he had to say aloud, Nathan handed his iPhone over for Boyang to hold while he read.

_Sorry, it’s okay. I was just thinking a lot. I’m not really a dancer. But thank you anyway._

Boyang fixed Nathan with an utterly unimpressed expression: eyebrow up, the other one down, mouth pulled into an absurdly accurate caricature of a slant-frowning emoji. _Interpretation 9.5,_ Nathan thought distantly, as Boyang handed his phone back and grabbed him by the arm.

“What?” He barely had time to pocket his phone, to keep from dropping it, before they were in motion. Boyang dragged him along, weaving between the tables and all the disarrayed chairs which Nathan hadn’t yet procrastinated his way into organizing, from the back of the banquet hall all the way up toward the front.

At the front, the dining tables were cleared away to make a dance floor. The DJ and his MacBook sat behind one long buffet table loaded with speakers and projection disco lights, shuffling his way through a _Best of the 90’s_ playlist that really should have inspired an intervention at the _first_ play of “Cotton Eye Joe.” Now on its _third_ repeat - and at this point the only thing that could be said to the DJ’s credit is that at least he’d spaced the torture out over the course of the night - the song was twanging its way through its hook, and most of the dance floor was gleefully kicking, spinning, and lasso’ing right along with it.

Boyang was pulling Nathan straight toward the center of this chaos, clearly determined to completely ignore everything Nathan had typed to him. Right as they reached the edge of the dancefloor, and a split second after Nathan resolved to dig in his heels, cling onto the chairs if necessary to get Boyang to let go, to _stop,_ because he didn’t dance to start with and he _definitely_ didn’t dance to _this_ \--

Boyang turned around to grin at him, eyes scrunched nearly shut, his _xiao hu ya_ fang denting the curve of his lower lip in a way that just drew all Nathan’s attention to how soft his lip looked, how it might feel to kiss that lip. _Those_ lips. Nathan was sure his heart was going to stop.

“Dance,” Boyang said, shifting his grip from Nathan’s forearm to hold his hand, and laced his fingers in-between Nathan’s. Nathan tottered onto the dancefloor without a whisper of objection.

Once out there, amid his friends and acquaintances and colleagues, Nathan felt _ridiculous_ . He _wasn’t_ a dancer, wasn’t good at it, _knew_ he wasn’t. It was just facts. Nathan knew he just looked stupid as hell, awkward and stiff and self-conscious, all the things that good dancers are not, and yeah, Boyang had asked, but he was gonna regret it in a minute, and this was going to be awful.

Except, Boyang wasn’t even looking at Nathan. He had thrown himself into dancing, unscripted and unbothered. The song changed, to one that Nathan didn’t recognize, and Boyang just flowed along with it.

Sometimes he’d look up, almost as far as he tipped his chin during jumps, while he shimmied side to side, doing something absurd and vogue-esque with his arms. And then he’d look down, find someone who was watching him, laughing at his silliness, and delightedly draw them into his radius for the next few moments, including them in his next move. Turn, laugh, spin, fix his attention on another person, pulling them in with his charm, and make up something for them to do together, too. Then turn again, find someone else.

Boyang was somehow dancing with everyone around him, and yet it was still just for himself, for his own delight. He wasn’t performing, wasn’t self-conscious, wasn’t worried whether the eyes on him were laughing with or at him. It was all ad-libbed, all spontaneous, all perfectly light and free and _fun_.

Nathan’s chest felt tight, and he felt acutely aware of how still he was standing, how half-hearted were his little shy attempts at swaying, snapping his fingers in time with the music. Boyang belonged here, but Nathan was awkward and tripped over chairs when someone said hi. Nathan should have stayed in the back of the room. Maybe, given the absolutely useless state he was in tonight, he should have just skipped the banquet entirely.

Abruptly, Boyang filled his entire range of vision, startling Nathan out of his self-conscious spiral. He held up his phone, on which he’d already prepared a translated phrase for Nathan to read.

 _Relax. You will know_ **_this_ ** _dance, ok?_

Quizzical, Nathan looked up, intending to hand Boyang his phone back.  But he’d already stepped away, fixing Nathan with an expectant grin, standing still and waiting for some sort of cue. And on a suitable beat of music, he spread his arms to his sides, palms spread at the level of his hips, rolled a purr across his lips, and started shimmying, in a simple, jerky choreography that Nathan recognized immediately.

“Oh my god,” Nathan laughed, as Boyang danced the _prr_ choreography flawlessly for him. Around them, a small space cleared naturally, responding both to Boyang’s wide-swung arms and the fast, precise footwork he had begun laying down. From _prr_ , after looping the core choreo twice, Boyang blended his way into _slide like this_ , and from there into a freestyle that contained bits of both of those, and some _fefe_ thrown in for flair.

And Nathan, delighted, jumped in, danced along. He mirrored Boyang’s movements at first, then branched into his own riffs, shyer, less flamboyant, but still his own. Boyang clapped for him and hyped him and suddenly, Nathan caught a glimpse of why people liked to do this, this absurdly silly thing.

If he concentrated just on Boyang, Nathan realized, everything else could just fall away a bit. If he just watched him, if he just danced dumb internet meme dances as answers to Boyang’s dumb internet dance meme questions, they didn’t need their phones or the nails-on-chalkboard anxiety of having to use Translate. They could have a whole conversation, almost as honest as when they were on the ice together, speaking the same language. Sure, this wasn’t quite the same. Dancing, Nathan thought, felt less like speech and more like Pictionary, maybe, or a really successful game of Charades. But it was _close_ , the closest Nathan had ever felt to being able to really, honestly communicate with Boyang outside of skating.

And that was the thing - they shared ice so infrequently. A few competitions a year, in which they were both preoccupied, stressed, laser-focused on their own skates, their bodies, everything they needed to do and only six and a half minutes to do it in. Competing _against_ Boyang was great, but skating _with_ him was even better, and yet, rarer still. Only in joint practice, and only on the first day of the competition weekend - Wednesday. Thursday, too close to the skates, all the lightness left, and they all buckled down, prepared for the fight. As well they should, and Nathan didn’t resent or begrudge anything about his life, about their work.

But on Wednesdays - and, very occasionally, Tuesdays, when a competition’s official practices began a day earlier, and the whole week was set aside for the event - on Wednesdays, Nathan could spend practices at half focus, flying under Raf’s radar, or taking advantage of his willingly blind eye. Then, _if_ the others were healthy, and _if_ they weren’t too stressed to enjoy it, Nathan looked forward to stealing a little time for themselves. Just a few minutes of skating with enjoyment, a bit of light, careful playing, a conversation in edges and steps and spread eagles.

Perfect as those moments were, they were equally rare, and Nathan had begun to despair that those scant moments could possibly be sufficient basis for a relationship. Hell, for a full friendship, much less anything else.

Thus his indecision. Thus advice, collected and accumulated over months, from his team. Thus finally, a kick in the ass from Hanyu, one blunt enough to remind Nathan that not only was Hanyu done with his shit, but that one other member of Team Japan, who shared Hanyu’s sentiment, was as well.

On this garishly lit makeshift dance floor, dancing with Boyang, Nathan thinks maybe he’s been pretty fucking foolish. Maybe he’s been discounting a whole wealth of opportunities to talk, to connect, that he shouldn’t have been. Maybe, even as awkward as Google Translate is, as self-conscious as it makes him to have to _use_ it -- _you’re Chinese-American, and you can’t speak Mandarin? You should be able to talk to him easily. Why can’t you? --_

Maybe he’s been overthinking the whole thing.

After the dance, Nathan decides, he’ll talk to Boyang. Or type to him, or something. He’ll figure it out. Maybe doing stupid internet meme dances together has put things in perspective. Or maybe he’s just feeling reckless. But both of those have worked out for him, historically, so - screw it. He’ll try. And if Boyang rejects him, he’ll get over it. But at least he’ll have tried, right?

* * *

Later, with his back against the wall of an empty hallway, several intentionally wrong turns away from anywhere the rest of the banquet’s guests would be likely to wander, Nathan grasps at thin air and tries to parse how he got here, and more importantly, how _here_ ended up being _pinned to a wall getting kissed within an inch of my life by my crush._

Boyang hadn’t questioned it when Nathan flashed him a message on the notepad screen of his phone. He’d responded back with one in kind, and a smile that had made Nathan feel bubbly and illicit, like they were hatching top secret plans together.

_I want to talk to you. Can we go somewhere else?_

_Yes. I know where._

Boyang had led him by the hand out of the ballroom, and when other skaters had stopped them, confused or concerned, Nathan had passed it off as a case of too much champagne, and Boyang the helpful friend to take care of him. Of those present, only Hanyu and Karen knew _who_ Nathan’s crush was, so the explanation hadn’t raised suspicion. He had been pretty proud of himself, in fact, for coming up with that excuse on the fly. Pretty slick of him, if he did say so himself.

...Nathan was starting to think that, firstly, he was exactly the opposite of slick, and in fact, had possibly been the least clued-in person at the entire goddamn party. And secondly: if at any point in the future Boyang wanted to lead him somewhere by the hand, Nathan would - given tonight’s precedents - happily follow him anywhere.

Because as they left the ballroom, Boyang’s attitude had changed. Not a lot, but - it caught Nathan’s attention. A bit less wild, a bit more focused. By the time they’d taken two or three turns, away from the block of hotel space that the ISU had rented, down into a section of small hallways lined with doors to conference rooms that nobody would be using, at this hour or even at all this weekend, Nathan had concluded that Boyang had something on his mind, something he wanted to tell Nathan.

And about fifty paces past the point at which Nathan’s curiosity turned into dread, into a certainty that this was a mistake, that he should turn around and go back, that Boyang would _definitely_ reject him and he’d be better off not ruining the friendship by saying anything at all, that Boyang had figured it out and was going to ask Nathan to knock it off, stop being so obvious--

After all of that, just as the rock in Nathan’s gut started doing a spin cycle, Boyang had stopped, and turned to face Nathan squarely.

“Yes?” Nathan itched to get out his notepad app, to explain or maybe just start off with apologizing, before he even explained why. But Boyang was close, very close, and looking away from his focused gaze seemed like a really bad idea.

Boyang studied Nathan’s face, calmly taking note of the furrow of Nathan’s brow, the tension around his lips, the rapid nervous blinking. Nathan had plenty of time to study Boyang, too, and at this range, that wasn’t making Nathan’s own nervousness any easier to handle. Somehow, Boyang’s gaze was sharply focused and at the same time, patient. _Gentle_ . Under this kind of scrutiny from other people, Nathan felt restless, on edge, like an itch had lodged itself under the his skin and was crawling all the way across his skull. But Boyang, who was studying Nathan’s face and every hint of his expression just as carefully, didn’t make Nathan uncomfortable. He made him feel _alive._

Boyang studied without accusation. Examined without threat. He leaned in close, and Nathan hammered down the urge to lurch forward and kiss him, smashed it down ruthlessly, heart in his throat. There was no room for accidents here, no room for a stupid impulse. But Boyang was close enough, looking carefully enough, and Nathan couldn’t hide. He _saw_ Boyang see the thought fly through Nathan’s mind. Boyang’s mouth smoothed out into a calm line, and he pulled back to a conversational distance, satisfied. He’d found what he was looking for in Nathan’s eyes.

Nathan’s heart dropped. _Fuck._

“Boyang…”

“I like you,” Boyang said, and Nathan scrambled to apologize, cheeks burning, words tumbling out of him in a rush.

“I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t ever mean to--wait _what_?”

Boyang smiled, understanding Nathan’s panic, if not his words.  “I like you,” he repeated, carefully, in English. Nathan gaped.

“I…”

Laughing, Boyang pulled his phone out of his pocket, opening up a notepad app. In it, he tapped to open a document, pretyped, clearly prepared ahead of time.

_For a while I have been trying to show you plainly that I like you too, but you did not understand. The other told me to just tell you simply, because you are American. It is okay, I like you anyway._

_;)_

_Can I kiss you?_

Nathan reread the note. Lifted Boyang’s phone from his hands, squinted at the screen, read it again. Tipped backwards to rest his weight on the wall behind him,

“Uh.”  He handed the phone back in a daze. Boyang pocketed it with one hand, and cupped the fingers of his other hand around the back of Nathan’s neck.  “ _Uhhhh._ ”

“Okay,” Boyang said, light and easy, cheerfully certain. He raked his fingers up, past Nathan’s hairline, ruffling the short hairs at his nape, and Nathan shuddered, lips parting on a groan. Boyang’s tongue slipped perfectly between them, flicking the peak of the upper one, painting the lower one from corner to corner in a single swipe.

Nathan was only human. He lurched forward, grabbing Boyang by the waist, the bicep, meaning to laminate himself against his body. Instead, he found himself pushed backward, til he was flat against the wall, and the hand with which he’d gripped Boyang’s arm was now pinned by the wrist to the wallpaper.

From a distance of two inches, if that, Boyang studied Nathan’s face, watched the flare of his nostrils and the black pools of his pupils opening wide. Nathan’s breath was coming short, as he’d realized he was completely forgetting to breathe from his whole lungs, and his lips, softly parted, felt dry and parched in the absence of Boyang’s tongue. Realizing Boyang might be waiting for consent, Nathan nodded hard, twice, and then again for good measure. Stretching his neck forward, he was able to brush Boyang’s mouth with his own, beg him to come back. Boyang smiled, lips curving ( _Alright, alright, so impatient_ ) against Nathan’s, and gave in, nuzzling close, smiling from ear to ear the whole way. His little tiger tooth, pressing his lower lip down on one side, stroked Nathan’s lips as he finally got Boyang within range, finally with the press of his lips coaxed Boyang’s smile, lovely as it was, to pretty please step aside.

 _Kissing now smiles later Boyang come_ **_on_ ** _._

It’s hard to kiss through a grin, of course, and kissing deeply is impossible. Nathan licked into Boyang’s mouth as soon as he could find space, finding the angle in which everything fit right, and his brain got lit on fire from the _good_ , the intense unbelievable good of kissing Boyang, of being _pinned to a wall kissing Boyang._ Nathan figured he could be forgiven for groaning - this was absolutely a groanworthy situation, right?

Boyang was the one to finally pull back, after a span of time Nathan really didn’t know how to count. It might have been five minutes or half an hour. His lips were tingling, jaw was sore, as were two dark soft spots on his neck and the underside of his jaw line. Lightheaded, both arms wrapped tightly around Boyang, one at his waist and one around the back of his ribcage, fingers splayed across his spine just below his neck, holding on like a drowning man. And hard, achingly so, in his suit trousers, pressed against Boyang’s hip.

“I think,” Nathan panted, head falling forward, so his brow thunked against Boyang’s collarbone and his breath washed across Boyang’s chest, down the front of his dress shirt, which had at some point been pulled open, all the way down to the third button. Nathan didn’t remember doing that. Huh.

“I, I think you’re a brat,”Nathan grumbled, “How the heck long have you _known_ and you didn’t _tell me_ and I’ve been freaking out this whole time for no reason and Alex is going to laugh in my _face…_ ”

“Nathan,” Boyang reminded him, and Nathan stopped. “Slow.”

Right. Kissing, and dancing, and he’d just fallen into babbling again, and babbling wasn’t going to work, if this was going to work. If they...was this a ‘they’ situation now? ...were going to work.

But first, there was something Nathan hadn’t done yet, something necessary.

“Okay. Right.” He tipped his head back, let it thunk against the wall. His bangs were trapping sweat against his forehead and he pushed them back, and covered his eyes with his forearm for a second, blocking out the lights in the hallway and in Boyang’s knowing gaze.  He exhaled.

_Okay. No pressure. You already know the answer. No big deal now, right? Tell him._

“I like you too,” Nathan said, enunciating, putting spaces between the words. Even already knowing Boyang’s answer, before Nathan had even asked the question, saying it was _hard,_ because confessing meant risk and his gut said that could mean heartbreak and he’d spent so damn long hiding it, or trying to. His instinct was to mumble it away, hide the vulnerable words between all the others, smushed together. He didn’t. And yeah, it was scary, but then Boyang stroked his cheek, knuckles curled and following the angle of Nathan’s cheekbone, just under his eye, and it felt like _Thank you,_ or maybe _Well done_. Nathan felt a lot less scared.

Nathan pulled his arm away from his face, and only narrowly avoided whacking it into Boyang’s, because now they were both reacting to Nathan’s confession, both reaching for each other from the same side, and they almost got their wrists tangled, as Nathan tried to reach for Boyang and Boyang tried to anticipate in the wrong direction. They both stopped, started, laughed, and Nathan let his hand fall, dipped his chin ever so slightly. _You first._

Boyang leaned in again, and his lips on Nathan’s were gentle, soothing, sweet. Nathan still had to deal with his boner situation, but his head was clear. He had confessed to Boyang! And Boyang liked him _back,_ and you know what, that was pretty awesome, right? When he blinked his eyes open again after the kiss, Boyang was right there, still hovering close, so Nathan turned his head, just a little, just enough to brush their noses together. _Thank you._

And Boyang laughed, _You’re welcome!,_ and, _My pleasure!,_ scrunching up his nose over his smile. So obviously Nathan had to do it again, smiling wide, starting to giggle. Boyang started giggling too, and then there they were, holding on to each other and laughing, about noses, about _nothing_ , in an empty silent hallway in a hotel in a city in a nation, and Nathan can’t remember the names of any of those things in English, and he has never known their names in Mandarin, and what did it matter? Really?

They slid down the wall til they hit the carpet, ass and knees and one hand put down to brace themselves.

_You okay?_

_Oh my god._

_Mind your foot._

_It’s fine._

Neither of them had drunk enough champagne to be this giddy, this full of bubbly idiocy. Nathan didn’t think champagne had that much pull, anyway, not compared to the thrill of sneaking away like this, hiding in plain sight, confessing to a boy who makes your heart do silly things, things that it’s been doing since you fell for him and his eloquence in a language you both speak without words.

Nathan pawed at his pocket, seeking his phone, because there were things he wanted to tell Boyang, things to ask, so much to say and to worry about now. If they could figure out how to talk with each other off the ice - and Nathan thought now that he had gotten over his stupid hang up about even _trying_ , it would probably be a lot easier to find ways to do so - then maybe they could figure this out. Maybe they could even be boyfriends. _Or we could be friends who make out, that would be cool too,_ Nathan amended quickly, even though it was only in his own head. Where _is_ his _phone?_

Boyang’s hand settled on his. _Don’t worry about that stuff yet,_ he was saying, or maybe _One thing at a time_ , or perhaps _Are you distracted?_ Nathan exhaled.

 _Right. It’s cool,_ he smiled, and raked his hair back from his forehead, shoving at the curls til they kind of behaved. _Now what?_

On his knees, Boyang shuffled forward, til their legs were scissored together and Nathan had to lean back, sit up straight, because there was no more room to slouch forward. Boyang smiled at close range, wide enough to flash his fang, eyes full of mischief and no good. _Maybe... some more of this?_

Nathan felt a little lurch in his gut.

“Good plan,” he mumbled, against Boyang’s lips, and then closed his own lips around the tip of Boyang’s tongue and sucked.

It got the message across.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll write a bit of sQuad fluff, she said. just two of them for now. i'll keep it short and sweet. under 1K words for valentine's.
> 
> ...so, naturally, this will in the future become part of a series, specifically the 3rd part out of 4 parts total.
> 
> as you can see, 'short and sweet' went exactly as planned. [eyeroll]
> 
>  
> 
> Big big thanks are due to my lovely betas halfjoker and cake_and_kuyashii. Also thank you to concertine, without whose help 'hu ya' would have forever escaped me. Please check out their works, they're truly fantastic. And as always, to all my darlings at KSSC. Happy valentines' to the seven of you who voted for this. you are now obligated to tell me honestly whether my Boyang characterisation was bad and if so how to fix it.
> 
> i'm capra, and thank you for reading.


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